Study Results from National Institute of Development Administration Provide New Insights into Dentistry (Moral Hazard and the Demand for Dental Treatment: Evidence from a Nationally Representative Survey in Thailand): Health and Medicine – Dentistry

Insurance Daily News

2022 SEP 06 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- Investigators discuss new findings in dentistry. According to news originating from Bangkok, Thailand, by NewsRx correspondents, research stated, “Even though there are examples in the health economics literature of evidence investigating moral hazard in health insurance provided by general healthcare services, studies of moral hazard in dental care in developing countries are still scarce, especially when it comes to nationally representative data on dental care demand and expenditure.”

Our news editors obtained a quote from the research from National Institute of Development Administration: “Using Thailand as a case study, we investigate here whether moral hazard in dental insurance exists and, if so, the extent to which it affects different dental insurance on the demand for dental care in developing countries. We use a nationally representative sample of 269,206 individuals to quantify the impacts of dental care insurance on four sets of dependent variables describing demand for dental care. They are: (i) dental care utilization, (ii) numbers of dental care visits, (iii) dental care expenditure, and (iv) each type of dental care. Our probit and tobit estimations show that there is no evidence of the existence of moral hazard in terms of dental care utilization and dental care expenditure. However, there is a moral hazard of dental insurance existence on the number of dental care visits and type of dental care.”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “People with generous dental benefits coverage tend to use preventive dental treatments along with necessary treatment but also use costly restorative dental treatments more than do those with lower coverage. It can thus be concluded that, in the case of developing countries, dental care insurance is found to increase the use of dental care, especially for preventive care.”

For more information on this research see: Moral Hazard and the Demand for Dental Treatment: Evidence from a Nationally Representative Survey in Thailand. International Journal of Dentistry, 2022,2022. (International Journal of Dentistry - https://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijd/). The publisher for International Journal of Dentistry is Hindawi Limited.

A free version of this journal article is available at https://doi.org/10.1155/2022/2259038.

Our news journalists report that additional information may be obtained by contacting Krichkanok Srimuang, Graduate School of Development Economics, National Institute of Development Administration, Serithai Road, Klong-Chan, Bangkapi, Bangkok 10240, Thailand. Additional authors for this research include Piriya Pholphirul.

ORCID is an identifier for authors and includes bibliographic information. The following is ORCID information for the authors of this research: Krichkanok Srimuang (http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0485-4447), Piriya Pholphirul (http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3213-4698).